


dickens

by cautiouslyoptimistic



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28320867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cautiouslyoptimistic/pseuds/cautiouslyoptimistic
Summary: kara doesn’t care for christmas, not reallyor, it's a christmas carol
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 8
Kudos: 185





	dickens

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: this is for @runyonsun over on tumblr who sent a photo prompt like a bajillion years ago. sorry it took so long and i hope you like it!

Kara doesn’t care for Christmas, not  _ really _ . 

Don’t get her wrong, she loves the lights and the time with family and the food and the  _ cheer,  _ loves all the things that she associates with Christmas: smiles, laughter, joy,  _ love _ . But the holiday itself...well, it’s just not for her. 

Alex and Eliza love Christmas too, listening to Christmas music even as Hanukkah begins and they light the menorah. They break out eggnog eventually, laughing every time Kara remembers there are actual eggs in the drink and she gags a little. 

Kara loves their traditions, the special things they do each year (like watch _ A Christmas Carol  _ at least once, like making latkes, like arguing over whether there should be three or four helpings of cranberry sauce on Christmas Day as Kara likes it so much). Kara loves her family. She loves being together. She loves the music and the dumb jokes she and Alex crack as Eliza shakes her head fondly and the feelings she gets when she’s with her family. But human holidays...they don’t mean the same thing to her as they do to Clark or Alex or Eliza. She’s other, separate. 

She’s often alone in spirit. 

(It is an isolating experience, when everyone expects you to be in on a celebration you do not truly understand, have never truly been a part of. Isolating, when you are the only one who can remember long lost traditions and holidays for a people that no longer exist, that greetings and specific phrases and well wishes remain lodged at the tip of your tongue because you know voicing them will lead to confusion. 

Isolating, when you set up a tree with lights and presents underneath and you can’t even remember the last time you prayed to Rao.

Isolating, she thinks, to keep Krypton solely in her own heart, where it would always be safe. Where it would remain untouched.)

No. Kara doesn’t care for Christmas, not really. And for the first time (she pretends she doesn’t know why, pretends she doesn’t know the cause of her lack of cheer), she finds she doesn’t care who else knows it. 

x

“You’re being a bit of a grouch today,” Nia says when Kara ambles by, barely managing not to grumble under her breath. Kara shoots her a glare but doesn’t respond, pretending not to notice the looks that Alex and Kelly exchange. 

“Kara—” Alex begins bracingly, but before she can say anything more, a loud screeching noise even the humans can hear has all of them turning their heads towards the window. From a few blocks away, Kara can see a large plume of smoke rising from the skyline. 

“An explosion?” Kelly guesses. Brainy opens his mouth to offer his opinion, but Kara doesn’t wait around for him to say a word, for Alex’s orders, or for J’onn’s suggestions as to how to approach the crisis. 

One second she’s with them, the next, she’s flying through the air, cape billowing behind her. 

(It’s nice, refreshing even, to be shooting through the sky rather than staying cooped up with her family. 

In the distance, she can even see the last rays of sunshine as the sun begins to set, and she thinks about how Krypton once was bathed in that same reddish hue. 

And for a moment, a breathtaking moment, she can almost imagine she’s twelve again and she’s back on Krypton, waiting for the stars to come out to watch the sky with her Aunt Astra.) 

She lands heavily moments later, quickly surveilling the scene. It was indeed an explosion, leading to a fire, the building quickly getting engulfed in flames, the upper floor totally blown. Some of the shouting and screaming pauses when people begin to notice her, and instead she gets swept up by a series of pleas for Supergirl:  _ the firefighters are still minutes away _ , they cry,  _ please _ ,  _ save my cat, my brother is missing, I can’t find my daughter, no one has seen our elderly neighbor _ . 

Kara closes her eyes and heaves a deep breath. “I’ll take care of it,” she says with a decisive nod, shooting up into the air once more. It takes barely a minute to put out the fire, less than that to speed through the building to rescue people and their pets. She barely notices the wooziness she feels when she gets to the top floor, the site of the explosion, and grabs the man sprawled on the ground, covered in a strange purple powder. “Merry Christmas,” she mutters to herself as the fire trucks roll in, first responders begin to take over, as she makes sure everyone is sorted and safe. She doesn’t stick around like she usually tries to, doesn’t try to offer any words of support or sympathy. Instead, with one last wave and nod, she flies back to her apartment. 

There, without a single word to Alex or the others, she heads straight to her bedroom and falls asleep. 

x

She wakes to a pounding head, rattling open window, and frigid air. 

Kara stumbles out of bed and rushes to her bedroom window, frowning when she notices snow falling into her room, unsure when it had last snowed in National City. She pushes the window shut, quickly sweeps up the snow, and it’s only then that she notices the doleful eyes following her every movement. 

It’s her. Or, more accurately, it’s twelve year old Kara, still wearing the light blue clothes with her house’s seal, her mother’s necklace around her neck. 

“This isn’t real,” Kara says immediately to her younger self, taking a step back. “What is this?” 

“You tell me,” Child-Kara says, sounding as sad as she looks. “It is  _ your _ mind that conjured me. The real question is  _ why _ .” 

Kara shakes her head, feeling a bit of panic settle in at the sight of clothes she hasn’t thought about in years, at a necklace whose weight she no longer carried. “No, no, there must be something wrong, this is—” A trick, a ruse, a dream? She isn’t sure. And she doesn’t get to find out: just as she’s about to demand her younger self speaks, the window flies open once more and snow pours into her bedroom. Quickly, Kara’s engulfed in the white powder, lungs heaving as she gets trapped, unable to move or see. 

Like being back in the pod. Like being back in—

She forces her eyes shut, knowing she’s going to hyperventilate, but just as she begins the exercises Kelly has been teaching her, she feels warmth on the back of her neck, hears the crash of water against land, smells salt in the air. 

Kara opens her eyes, and she’s back in Midvale, standing on the beach. 

“Remember our first winter here?” Child-Kara asks, words that have Kara looking down at her quizzically. “Remember the things we wished for?” 

(Yes, Kara remembers. In her darkest of moments, she remembers wishing she’d stayed with her parents on their dying planet. 

She remembers wishing the Danvers wouldn’t care about her, not when she couldn’t care about herself.) 

“Why are we here? This was a long time ago,” Kara says, ignoring the question entirely. She can hear seagulls in the distance, but all she really can focus on is the small house a ways up from where she stands, where Eliza still lives, where Jeremiah and his wife and daughter first gave Kara a home on this planet. The old swing set, which was taken down after Jeremiah went missing, is still there. The house is painted a soft blue, something Eliza had recently changed. 

This is the Midvale of over a decade and a half ago, a Midvale that only really exists in memories and photos. 

“Do you remember our first holiday on this planet?” her younger self asks. Kara adjusts her glasses, feeling something akin to guilt creep into her gut. 

“I do. Jeremiah and Eliza tried so hard to make it special.” She smiles a little bit. “They weren’t sure if I’d want to keep my own traditions, adopt theirs, or be more like Clark and have a full Christmas, so they did a little bit of everything. And that...stuck. Even today.”

“Everything except for our traditions,” Child-Kara reminds her gently, and the world seems to lurch, everything twisting and contorting until Kara finds herself in the living room of her old home, staring at a small Christmas tree adorned with symbols marking Nova Day. Today, the thought and care clearly placed into such a gesture isn’t lost on Kara. But when she was twelve.... 

The world seems to lurch again, and it’s as if time speeds up. One second Kara is standing there with her younger self, the next the room is lit only by Christmas lights, the menorah, Child-Kara’s laser vision as she burns the Nova Day symbols to the ground. 

“No!” she shouts, and Kara doesn’t need to look on to know what happens next. Because this, this is a memory—a painful one. “Nova Day is about rebirth, new beginnings! Not silly human trees and lights!” 

“Kara, please,” Jeremiah says bracingly, holding up his hands, “we just want to give you a taste of home, of family.” 

“Family? Home?” Child-Kara spits out, causing both Alex and Eliza to wince. “I have  _ no _ family or home!” 

“Kara—”

Kara remembers what happens next. She rushes off to the beach, Jeremiah and Eliza hot on her tails, and Alex spends that night and most of the next day alone. She’ll end up telling Kara she ruined the holidays like she ruined the family and it will lead to one of their biggest fights before they learn to get along. 

Thankfully, she’s not forced to watch the memory play out. The world lurches a third time, and Kara finds herself back in her own present day bedroom, all the snow miraculously missing. Child-Kara pulls off the necklace around her neck and presses it into Kara’s hand, but doesn’t pull away. 

“They never brought up Kryptonian traditions again. Is this our plan? To let Krypton die with us?”

Kara feels her throat close up. “No,” she stutters out. “No, I don’t want that, I just....” She trails off, not knowing what she’s waiting for, what keeps holding her back. 

Child-Kara looks disappointed, as if the answer is easy and she’s being obtuse on purpose. “Can we afford to wait for the pain to fade if the pain threatens to outlast us?” 

Kara blinks, shaking her head. “Who are you, really, you sound like—”

Child-Kara releases Kara’s hand and pulls back, the necklace and the child disappearing at once, before the world seems to go black. 

x

Kara opens her eyes to the DEO. 

It’s empty, for the most part. Only one other living thing seems to be there apart from Kara herself: an identical double. 

The double, which is perfectly exact from her golden curls to the dimples when she smiles, places her hands on her hips and stands proudly in Kara’s Super suit. 

“So you met Past, did you?” the copy says cheerfully. “Great, we’re right on track. I’m Present.”

“Present?” Kara repeats dumbly, unable to help it. 

“Yes, of course. Present us.” Present-Kara winces. “Well, no. That’s a lie. I guess it’s more ‘us before we think we lose Lena’ than present us. Because present us, meaning you, is sort of a mess.” A crinkle appears between her brows. “No offense.” 

“Am I...am I hallucinating  _ A Christmas Carol _ ?” 

Present-Kara cocks her head to one side. “Would it make you feel better if I said yes? Maybe you’re hallucinating, maybe your subconscious is telling you something, maybe you got exposed to some sort of foreign goo while saving a bunch of people from a burning building and all this is a defense mechanism your mind created to protect itself. Who can really say?” She grins and drops the hero pose, rocking back on her heels in excitement. “What’s important is you’re here now, with me. And I have something to show you.” 

Kara ignores her copy and stalks over to the balcony. She moves to take off, shoot into the air, but all she manages is to jump about a foot before she drops heavily to the floor. 

“Oh,” Present-Kara says with some mirth, “I should mention. You don’t have your powers here.” She grins again, helping Kara to her feet, looking and sounding positively  _ bubbly _ . Happy.  _ Oh _ .

“You’re me when I first figure out I love Lena, aren’t you?” Kara states more than asks, ignoring her copy’s help. “No wonder you’re like this.”

“Excited? Cheerful?”

“Hopeful,” Kara corrects, walking back into the DEO, which is now full of people. 

Present-Kara looks bemused. “Only a few days separate you and me. But so much changes.”

“I lost my best friend.”

“We hurt our best friend, but she’s not lost to us. Not yet.” 

Kara turns to her copy with some bewilderment. “You know that the stupid love confession doesn’t work, right? She said she couldn’t do it, couldn’t risk it.” 

Her copy stares back evenly, apparently unswayed. “Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if we told her who we are sooner? If we returned her trust with our own?” She doesn’t wait for a response. She flicks her hand and the DEO seems to fill with smoke, obscuring everything, but then it clears out, revealing a scene that’s familiar enough to Kara: Alex, Lena, Brainy, and Kara herself standing around the large circular table, discussing next moves on the latest threat. Lena is wearing a DEO issued suit, hair in a braid, and Kara recognizes this as the day they saved Sam together with Alex. 

The scene before her is different from anything Kara’s ever experienced though. Her copy is in her old suit, with the skirt, her hair lacking the bangs that’s Kara’s come to hate. And rather than just stand next to Lena, Present-Kara is holding her in her arms, the two of them staring at each other almost lovingly. 

No. It  _ is _ lovingly, Kara realizes when Lena and her copy kiss. 

She watches with some alarm until Alex clears her throat and tells the two of them to focus, tutting out a displeased ‘ _ Kara _ ’ in protest when the copy goes for one last quick peck before refocusing her attention towards their work. 

Kara wants to shout. To scream. She doesn’t want to see this, further evidence of her mistakes. She starts to turn away, but there’s no need, as the fog sweeps in and out once more, leaving Kara alone in the DEO with her copy for the second time. 

“Is this why I’m here? To watch myself make all my biggest mistakes in better definition?” Kara asks, leaning against the closest wall and sliding to the ground, legs extended out in front of her. 

Present-Kara comes and sits down next to her, letting out a soft sigh. “We kept Krypton in our heart to protect it. We kept who we are from Lena for so long to protect her. These mistakes have much more in common than we think.” 

“What does that mean?” Kara demands, confused and beginning to feel a bit of annoyance with the lack of clarity. 

“Kryptonians once celebrated a day of honesty and truth. Perhaps it’s time we were honest with ourselves for a change when we ask this question: what are we so afraid of?” 

Kara doesn’t have a response, but she doesn’t need one. 

The world goes black again. 

x

When she opens her eyes, she’s not quite surprised that she’s greeted by another version of herself, if aged many decades. 

“I’m sorry,” Kara tells her, getting to her feet, unsure where they are. “I’ve had my fill of watching my old mistakes. I don’t want to see the ones I haven’t even made yet.” She takes a step away from Old-Kara, but her foot gives way and she falls, tumbles right into a cemetery. 

She determinedly doesn’t look at the grave stones. 

“Haven’t you gotten it yet,” Old-Kara croaks out, appearing next to Kara and placing a hand on her shoulder. “We aren’t showing you our mistakes.”

“The ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is silent,” Kara says tonelessly, getting to her feet and still avoiding the grave stones. “Even my hallucination can’t get anything right.”

Old-Kara doesn’t respond, just lets out a soft chuckle, and she turns her head, looking far into the distance. Kara follows her gaze, her heart dropping when she notices it’s Lena, hair gray and struggling with her cane, approaching one of the graves. 

“This isn’t right,” Kara mutters, shaking her head, even as she and Old-Kara follow Lena and stop just a few feet behind her. “This can’t be right,” she says, eyes finally falling to the grave, somehow unsurprised to see her own name on the stone. 

“Losing our loved ones, that’s a mistake. Having to live without them would mean we failed, that we did something wrong. But this? This is our worst fear,” Old-Kara says bluntly, one of her bony hands coming to grip Kara’s wrist as they watch Lena struggle to bend down and place a bouquet of flowers on Kara’s grave. “We swore, didn’t we? Swore that we’d never leave the ones we love.” 

“I don’t want to see this,” Kara says, shaking her head. “I don’t want to know anymore.”

“She comes here. Every day. Visits us, every single day. So tell me, tell the truth, what are we so  _ afraid _ of?” 

And it comes to Kara as if it had always been just beyond her reach, just barely brushing her fingertips every time she attempted to seize the answer, finally giving way long enough that Kara is able to grasp it.  _ Loss _ . Oh, Rao, she is so afraid of loss. 

(Afraid of losing Krypton a second time if she didn’t hold on tight to her memories, gripping them with all she had, not trusting even a family she loves so much with the few precious remnants of her home world. 

Afraid of losing Lena’s friendship, her respect, her concern, afraid—deathly afraid—that Lena would cease to love her in any capacity if she knew the truth about who Kara is. Afraid that the decisions she made because she was so afraid made her lose Lena anyway, that they could’ve had everything had Kara been straightforward from the start. 

And so afraid of being the source of loss. Of making Alex or Eliza or Lena feel the pain she’s felt thousands of times over, when she lost her planet, when she was left behind by Clark, when she gave up Mon-El. She can’t, she can’t be the source of pain for the ones she loves. She can’t do that to them.)

“Nothing is set in stone, you know,” Old-Kara says, tone casual, as if she has no clue that Kara has come to a life changing realization. “We don’t need to fly around the planet to turn back time to change things.” She grins and shrugs as she turns to Kara. “But I think it’s time we stopped letting our fear get in the way, don’t you?” 

Kara opens her mouth, certain about her next words, but then the world goes black a third time, and she knows no more. 

x

The next time she wakes, it isn’t to another version of herself, but to the soft hum of the DEO sunlamps, to a heavy presence at her side. She shifts a little, looking down, somehow unsurprised to see Lena sitting awkwardly on a chair next to Kara’s bed, head pillowed by her arms, which are in turn hugging Kara’s left arm. When Kara shifts again, Lena’s head shoots up, and she gets to her feet, clearly intending to check Kara over, to make sure she’s okay.

Lena stills when Kara just gently takes hold of her hand.

“You gave everyone quite a scare,” Lena says, going for chiding and yet sounding so utterly relieved. She doesn’t meet Kara’s eyes as she speaks. “It’s Christmas, Kara. Even you can take a break from near death experiences on Christmas.”

Kara laughs, her chest aching with the movement. “Aren’t you the one who had an assasination attempt on Christmas?”

“Hmm, no. That was Thanksgiving, and everyone knows that that’s perfectly acceptable for Thanksgiving.” 

“I’m not as well-versed on the social etiquette regarding attempts on one’s life,” Kara says, searching Lena’s face, waiting for her to look her in the eye. “Was it?” she asks.

It’s an awful question, but Lena seems to understand. “As far as Alex and I could tell, no, it wasn’t an attempt on your life. Seems as though it was an attempt to recreate a tradition from another planet gone wrong. Other aliens in the area fell sick as well.” She smiles and finally meets Kara’s gaze, her eyes impossibly soft, impossibly gray. “Everyone’s okay. They woke up hours ago, we figured you got the worst of it because you got exposed to the most.” 

“Great,” Kara says, still not letting go of Lena’s hand, not breaking her gaze now that she has it. “I’ll add avoid purple things to my list of things that can hurt a Kryptonian.” She tries not to wince as she takes in a deep breath. “Where is Alex?”

“The DEO never sleeps,” Lena answers, shrugging easily and sitting back down. “There was another emergency, but she should be back soon, with Nia, Brainy, and J’onn. We don’t want you to stray too far from the sunlamp yet, so Kelly’s gone back to your place to bring back everything we need to celebrate the holidays right here.” There’s an unasked question in her tone, but Kara speaks before she even registers it.

“You’ll stay, right?” she asks, knowing she sounds a little desperate but not quite caring. “Please?”

Lena stares, almost like she’s in shock, then blinks. “You want me here?”

“Yes,” Kara responds without hesitation.

“Kara,” Lena begins bracingly, “I haven’t changed my mind about us yet, I —” 

( _ Yet _ , Kara thinks. She said  _ yet _ .

And she feels a swelling of hope.)

“It’s the holidays,” Kara cuts in, rubbing her thumb over the back of Lena’s hand. “It’s time for loved ones, and you don’t stop being a loved one just because you said you said no to us.” She grins a little, still feeling impossibly afraid. “Besides, there are a few Kryptonian traditions I want to start with my family. So you have to be here.” 

Lena doesn’t respond in words, not right away. Instead, she moves her hand so that their fingers are intertwined, using her free hand to gently tuck a stray strand of Kara’s hair behind her ear. “Nia said you’ve been a grump for days and you kept muttering ‘ _ fricken’ Dickens _ ’ under your breath while you were out. What did that purple goop do to you?”

“Do you want to know a secret?” Kara asks conspiratorially. When Lena raises an eyebrow but nods, Kara continues. “I have absolutely  _ no _ idea. But, it turns out the third ghost  _ does _ talk, the movies all got it wrong.” 

Lena laughs, and ultimately, when Alex, Kelly, and the others get back, decorations and food in tow, that’s how they find them: giggling, hands still intertwined. 

(And it’s not as though one strange dream turns into a Christmas miracle. Her fears don’t disappear, they don’t magically go away.

But surrounded by her family, by her loved ones, Kara’s feeling just a bit braver, just a bit more willing to face her fears—safe in the knowledge she doesn’t have to go it alone.)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr @c-optimistic. i'm super into eivor/randvi so like. send me prompts. supercorp who hahahaha
> 
> happy holidays everyone and have a great new year!


End file.
